Who's liable for a robot-car crash?

Look carefully and you will see there is nobody at the wheel of this Audi RS7 as it howls down the main straight at Hockenheim at up to 240kph. But what would the Audi do if confronted by a South African minibus taxi?

Look carefully and you will see there is nobody at the wheel of this Audi RS7 as it howls down the main straight at Hockenheim at up to 240kph. But what would the Audi do if confronted by a South African minibus taxi?

Published Oct 2, 2015

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Johannesburg - Science-fiction author Isaac Asimov coined the Three Laws of Robotics to ensure that humans would never be harmed by the autonomous machines they built.

1 - A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2 - A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3 - A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

We are reminded of these laws now that the era of self-driving cars is nearly upon us, and rules governing the behaviour of autonomous machines come out of the fictional universe into real life.

Autonomous driving will be a fixture of future mobility thanks to its many advantages: greater convenience, less stress, lower fuel consumption and the potential for improved road safety. However, just as many of Asimov's robot-based stories involve robots behaving in unusual ways as an unintended consequence of how they applied the Three Laws in tricky situations, the same could apply to autonomous cars.

For instance, in an impending collision, would a self-driving car choose to crash into a pedestrian walking next to the road, or into a motorcyclist that had turned across its path?

LEGAL AND ETHICAL QUESTIONS

Before we set robot cars loose on the world, there is a wide range of legal and ethical questions to be answered, and to set the ball rolling Daimler last week hosted a symposium on “Autonomous Driving, Law and Ethics” in Frankfurt. More than 100 experts from business, science, politics and the media discussed the challenges.

“Who is responsible for autonomous driving - the driver, the vehicle owner, or the manufacturer?” asked Dr Julian Nida-Rümelin, Professor of Philosophy at LMU Munich and former State Minister for Culture in his keynote address on technology ethics.

“Since robots cannot act like humans or be treated like them, we must clarify how to assign our criteria from criminal law, civil law and common morals to the new technologies,” he said.

Several carmakers also recently teamed up to create a 32-acre “city” at the University of Michigan in the United States, where self-driving cars are being tested before they are set loose in the real world.

Dubbed M City, the facility simulates the chaos of a busy urban environment with a range of complexities vehicles encounter. It includes roads with intersections, traffic signs and signals, pavements, traffic circles, simulated buildings, street lights, and obstacles such as construction barriers.

Carmakers involved in the project so far include Ford, Honda, Nissan, Toyota and General Motors.

ON TRACK AT HOCKENHEIM

A growing number of modern luxury cars have semi self-driving features that guide them in their lanes, keep a safe following distance, and automatically brake to avoid an errant car or pedestrian, but it’s not full autonomous driving as the systems only work if the driver keeps their hands on the steering wheel.

Several prototype autonomous cars have made journeys without the aid of human intervention, including the Google Self-Driving Car being tested on US public roads.

Audi recently set an automated RS7 loose around Germany’s Hockenheimring track at speeds approaching 240km/h with no driver aboard. It used specially corrected GPS signals, transmitted via WiFi and backed up by a simultaneous high-frequency radio signal, to orientate itself on the circuit. At the same time, 3D cameras in the car filmed the track and a computer program compared the images to a data set stored on board, allowing the car to memorise the circuit.

Apart from such cool stunts there are still many obstacles to overcome before we can simply sit back in a car and say “Home James”, not the least of which is that a car’s computer could potentially be hacked.

However, the day of robotised cars is getting ever closer, and it’s estimated that they will account for up to a quarter of car sales in 20 years’ time. - Star Motoring

Follow Denis Droppa on Twitter @DenisDroppa

 

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